3D Viewer Window

This command views in 3D, the selected 3D faces, blocks, polylines, lines and points. This routine uses the OpenGL graphics library for rendering, which gives it superior performance. Some of its features include the ability to zoom in and out, pan, rotate around the X,Y,Z axis and shade in user-positioned lighting. Press the right mouse button and drag to zoom the display.

View Control

Ignore Zero Elevations: When checked, the 3D viewer ignore entities at zero elevation.
Color By Elevation: This will color the contours or 3D faces by elevation. The elevation scale legend is displayed on the left of the window.
Apply Texture: Uses a texture pattern for shading surfaces.
Display Sky: Creates a sky dome of 3D faces around the site that is colored blue with some clouds. In order to see the sky, your view point must be below the sky dome. This feature is only available when the software-only graphics mode is turned off under Carlson Configure->General Settings.
Vert. scale: Sets the vertical scale factor for the 3D viewer. Relatively flat surfaces can be exaggerated by increasing the vertical scale.

This control represents position of the sun in the sky if looked from above. Therefore, the position of the sun in the center means that the sun is in a zenith, and position near the edge of the circle means that the sun is near the horizon. To move the sun, simply drag it to a new location, or click on the new location. The slide bars on the sides are the intensity and brightness of the display.

Zooms IN.

Zooms OUT.

Switch to Dynamic Zoom mode.

Zoom Previous.

Switch to Pan mode. Click and drag to pan.

Switch to Rotation mode.

Switch to initial view.

Toggles shading on and off.

This is an inquire tool. Point the arrow to any entity to display entity data including the layer, type, elevation and length.

Resets the 3D view to plan.

This function outputs the image to a report. The report format (PDF or DWF) is specified Settings->Configure->General Settings.

This function exports the graphic display to an image file. Several different image file formats are supported including bmp, png, jpg, xpm and gif. There is a Export Image Selections dialog to choose the image resolution and color depth.

Exit the 3D viewer window.

Clip Plane: This slider will clip the image based on the location of the slider. When the slider is all the way to the left, the entire image is displayed. Moving the slider to the right will clip the image, going deeper as the slider is moved to the right. This is useful to view items that are hidden behind something else.
Scroll Bars: Use X,Y,Z scrollbars near the bottom to rotate the view. The range of these scrollbars is -180 to +180 degrees with middle being 0 which is the default position when the viewer starts. When the cursor is near the middle of the window, the XY icon will allow for rotating the image with the mouse, while holding the left mouse button. Move the cursor to the edge, and the icon switches to Z. This allows for rotating around the Z axis with the mouse, while holding the left mouse button. The Lock toggles hold the axis rotation fixed both for the scroll bar and when dragging with the mouse in the viewer.
Fixed Views: This selection list sets a pre-defined view. Plan View sets the view to look straight down. The other views look from a low angle from the NE, SE, SW or NW.

Settings Tab

Display Axis Icon: This controls whether to show the X/Y/Z axis icon in the lower left of the graphic window.
Display Bounding Box: This controls whether to display a 3D box around the limits of the data.
Display Orbit: Shows a graphic guide in the viewer for controlling the view angle and position using the mouse movements similar to the AutoCAD Orbit routine.
Apply Surface Smoothing: This option controls the shading of 3D faces either flat by the normals of each 3D faces or smoothed by transitioning with neighboring 3D faces.
Display Triangle Edges: Shows the edge lines for triangles for visualizing the triangles that make up a surface. When active, there is a setting to control the color for these edges.
Display Surface Names: Shows the file names in the viewer for the surfaces currently being viewed.
Display Vertical Scale: This controls whether to display the current vertical scale in the graphic window.
Display Non-Surface Entities: This controls whether to display entities that have been tagged as "non-surface" by the Tag Non-Surface Entities or Points commands.

Sets the drawing view to match the view shown in the 3D viewer window.

This button sets the view position and target position by coordinates. The positions can be entered in the edit boxes or use the Pick button to pick a point in the drawing. The program will pick up the height of the surface for picked points and then the height above the position can be entered. For example to check sight distance, the view position could be a point on a road and height could be the driver eye height and the target position and height could be the object to check.

Color By Elevation Scale: These three colors are used for the Color By Elevation option. The program will interpolate between these colors for the color scale.
Saved Views: This option allows for naming and saving a 3D view. These can be selected from the pulldown. They can be deleted from the list.

Advanced Tab

Block Model Objects: This option has three choices when loading block model entities. 1. To leave as points. 2. To Render and 3. To prompt each time. If render is selected, it will apply to all face objects such as a TIN or GRD.
Block Model layers: This will display the block color scheme. Colors of the blocks can be turned on or off to view blocks in the middle.
Shading Mode: There are 3 shading modes to render 3D faces. They are 1. Shade Front, 2. Shade Both, and 3. Shade Back. This will render the top and bottom of the faces if desired.
Surface Files Being Displayed: This list controls showing multiple surfaces in the viewer. The Add Surfaces function allows adding grid or triangulation surfaces to the viewer. Double-clicking on a surface name in the list toggles on/off whether that surface is displayed. The Edit Surface Color button changes the color of a surface.
Use Dynamic Text: This controls whether text objects resize based on the current zoom level or stay the fixed size according to their text size in the drawing.

Pulldown Menu Location: View
Keyboard Command: cube
Prerequisite: Entities to display